Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Alpha in the Movie Biz?

This one should make Equity Private proud! Bloomberg has a front page piece on Ben Waisbren and his cohort Ryan Kavanaugh (subject of her poison pen here and here and probably a few other places too). While the article focuses on Waisbren's efforts to crack the Hollywood financing code, my Spidey sense went off shortly into the read. Sure enough, if you get deep enough in, you find the Kavanaugh name.

Wow. You really have to wonder why people think they can find some magic quant model to apply to the entertainment business. I imagine that smarter people than these guys have already run the numbers and thats why the major PE players have stayed out of the business. Bright lights, big city, I guess.